Cross country Wildcats win at Jamesville Beach

In its first big competition of the fall, the West Genesee boys cross country team stepped up and, led by a swift quartet of front-runners, earned a victory over Cicero-North Syracuse in Saturday’s Chittenango Invitational.

Competing on the same Jamesville Beach Park course where they’ll hold the Section III championships on Nov. 2, the Wildcats and Northstars pulled away in Varsity Race 1, and WG, with 23 points, held off C-NS, who had 41 points.

Not only that, but WG won the merged competition when all three races were computed together. The Wildcats had 83 points in that portion, with Rochester McQuaid (the team winner in Race 2) second and C-NS third.

Somehow, the Wildcats landed four of the top five positions in a 222-runner field, led by junior Will Randall, who covered the course in 17 minutes, 2.5 seconds to earn the victory, with senior Jack Erhard in second place (17:07.7), more than five seconds behind.

After C-NS’s Andrew Bearkland finished third (17:08.9), the Wildcats’ other top runners charged to the line, with freshman David Leff fourth, in 17:09.9, and senior Nate Conroy (17:12.4) sliding into fifth place. No one could catch the Wildcats now.

Maria Matkoski led the Wildcats, finishing 21st in a time of 21:33 flat, edging out teammate Elise Dunshee (21:33.9) by less than a second for that spot. Rachel Flynn was 29th, in 22:06.9, with Sarah Ferranti 32nd (22:19.7) and Elisabeth Beardsley (22:40.2) also in the scoring column. Maggie Guinto (22:51.0), Annie Baker (22:58.9) and Alicia Sakran (23:06.9) also had top-50 efforts.

Two days earlier, in the CNY Counties League regular-season opener, West Genesee’s cross country teams rolled past Oswego 15-50 in the boys meet.

WG swept the top 10 on the boys side, led by Conroy and Erhard, who went 1-2 as they each crossed the line in 18 minutes, 18 seconds.

Leff was third, in 18:22, with Lannon fourth in 18:24. Beney got to fifth place in 18:28, just ahead of Randall (18:31) in sixth. McAnulty finished seventh (18:36) as Richards (18:50), Romano (18:59) and Connor Smith (19:09) also ran well.

When WG’s girls team beat Oswego 15-48, Laura Leff led a top-five sweep, not pushing herself too hard as she finished in 21:47, but still comfortably ahead of the pack.

Lindsay Weaver, in 22:01, held off Matkoski (22:03) for the runner-up spot, with Ferranti fourth in 23:19, just ahead of Beardsley (23:21) in the fifth spot. Adding further depth, Flynn was seventh, in 23:31, with Sakran (23:37), Bridgett Spiddle (23:40) and Guinto (23:41) also in the top 10.